World on the Turtle's Back

[JustinK.]

I don't understand why the West Wind came and laid two arrows on the woman's stomach. Why "the West Wind? Does it mean something to the Native Americans?

Also, Why two arrows, a sharp and a blunt one? What do they represent?

Personally i think the sharp one is the left-handed twin and the blunt one is the right-handed twin. Both of them are equally smart and strong. So comparing them through their capability(since the sharp arrow does it's job better) is not accurate enough. I think that the right-handed twin is the blunt arrow because he create organisms that are gentle, while the left-handed twin hurts those animals, but creating poisonous organisms or carnivals.

um...i have no idea about the first question though

[lukejoo1092]

What I'm guessing is that they call it the West wind simply because that's the direction the wind came to them. The wind blows from different directions according to different parts of the earth (geography class...). Maybe they simply called it the West Wind because it came from the west.

About the arrows, I think the sharp one meant the right twin and the blunt one meant the left twin. I think it was kind of resembling their fate, that the right twin will end up killing the left twin while the left twin will fail to do the same. Blunt arrows can't kill something. The sharp ones can.

[jungholee]

I'm not sure about the West Wind. But i heard somewhere, that west wind shows the birth of life. I'm not sure is it ancient egypt or something. But the direction of wind was represent something.
And the sharp and blunt was as what luke said, represent right handed and left handed.
sharp and blunt are opposite, and sharp can break blunt, but blunt cannot. Do you remember when right and left fight, left used blunt thing such as baseball bat? I don't remember what it called, but something like that. So left couldn't kill right using by blunt thing, and right could kill left by use sharp thing.

[nadiraamalina]

I like what Luke said about the person represented by the sharp arrow eventually killing the person represented by the blunt arrow. So it's some form of foreshadowing, then?

This is just a guess. I wasn't able to find anything on the West Wind on the internet so here goes:
You know how some weather conditions determine the time to plant crops and stuff? Yeah I bet the west wind represents something like life, which is why he is the person who makes the left and right twins come into existence.

[brandonina]

I agree with Justin because I also thought that the blunt arrow (right-handed twin) was supposed to represent a gentle character and the sharp arrow brought some kind of an evil or aggressive image. I'm not really sure too but they were obviously supposed to be opposite to each other. This was the main thing to catch.

The part about the west wind. Hmmm... I have no idea. Does somebody have a provable evidence to support his/her idea? I'm also curious.

[ExtremelyExtremeExtremist]

I¡¯m thinking that wind affected the accuracy of firing arrows, or it could be that the west refers to the location of their tribe (meaning that they had some advance in geography).

Like what you said, I thought that the right-handed twin is blunt arrow and left-handed twin is sharp arrow but Ms. Boyd told us that it¡¯s opposite. She told us that all arrows should be sharp to kill animals, which is normal. The normal one refers to the right-handed twin. Blunt arrow is the ¡°wrong one¡±, which can¡¯t harm animals. The wrong one refers to left-handed twin.

[sergeyfen]

I dont really know what west wind means, maybe its just blows from the west side, all native americans mention winds that specifically comes from the west, not sure though. Anyway i think that sharp arrow is the right handed one because it does the right thing, in order to do something well you have to be determined and right so i think it represents right handed. Blunt arrow represents left handed because its twisted and wrong thats why its blunt. Well anyway ms. Boyd said its the other way, soo yeah.

[elisalee]

I agree with Luke for the first question, I don't think there is a reason why they called the wind west wind. I think it's because it came from west. And for the second question, I think the two arrows were called blunt and sharp ones because the blunt one represented the good spirit and the sharp one represented the bad spirit.

[linnie]

I agree with Luke about the west wind. I took geography class as well with him last year, and learnt about it. I think America has jet stream, which is west wind. I think Native Americans already knew this information. Maybe they just picked random direction. But I think those people already knew about the direction of wind and named west wind.

Also about the arrow, as most of us know now, it is twins: left twin and right twin. I heard that lots of people argue about which is which. This is very confusing and I agree with Justin about the arrow. I think blunt one is right one and sharp one is left one. When we read this, we can find out that right twin made plants and animals that doesn't harm. But left one makes the poisonous and harmful creatures. Through this, I think right one is blunt one since he can't harm anyone and sharp one is left one because he created creatures that can harm like sharp arrows.

[esther]

I think the west wind was significant to the native americans in any kind of way. Also, i think the blunt and the sharp arrow represents the left and the right handed ones.

[gb1708]

I think it just represents the opposite like left-handed and right-handed. I don't think one of the arrow represent one the twin because they have a same quality that they are both strong and smart. But, blunt arrow are kind of useless and low-level so those arrows doesn't have a same quality.

[mirim002]

ooh luke's idea of the left twin killing the right twin was really interesting. i have no idea why they chose the west wind...maybe the west wind was a very important figure in their life. and yeah i think the blunt one represents the right twin and the sharp, the left twin.

[munisa]

Maybe its called west wind because Sun rises from the west if Im not wrong.... or is it from the east, anyways... thats what I think